Hinton Family Collection

The Twin Wells community was located in northwest Dallas County about eight miles northwest of downtown Dallas and two miles east of the city of Irving near the West Fork of the Trinity River. Travelers coming from Dallas crossed the river at the Eagle Ford crossing on the Eagle Ford Trail, later the Eagle Ford Road, and later still Singleton Blvd.

The community grew up during the late 1800s, and was named for two water wells that were on opposite sides of the Eagle Ford Trail. Residents of the area farmed, raised poultry, and kept dairy herds. Children of the community attended the nearby Irving schools.

Never a large community, the population of the area peaked at about 150
in the 1940s. Construction of a major thoroughfare during the late 1940s
cut the community in two. The city of Irving annexed the area in 1951.

Harwood P. Hinton, Sr., was born in Marshall, Texas, in 1870. He moved to west Texas to live with relatives in 1891. In 1909, he traded his west Texas chicken farm for 63 acres in northwest Dallas County in the community of Twin Wells. He worked for a time tending draft animals at a refinery in west Dallas. In 1914, he traded part of his 63 acres for a store in the small town of Irving, which was about two miles west of his land. Hinton's first wife, Pinkie Elizabeth, with whom he had two sons, died in 1917.

He married Lucy Wright in 1921. She preferred living on the land out at Twin Wells, so the family moved there with plans to open a store on their Twin Wells land. Their land was along the road from Dallas to Irving and areas further west. Before the store was finished, Lucy was killed in a train wreck.

In 1924, Hinton opened Hinton's Twin Wells Store. He married Willie Mae Garner in 1926. The couple had one son. Hinton's second son by his first wife opened Twin Wells Lumber Company in 1928. In 1942, the Hintons sold the store and lumberyard and most of their Twin Wells land. H. P. Hinton, Sr., spent the final years of his life just across the river from Twin Wells in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. He died in 1956.

The photos in this collection are from the Hinton Family Collection in the Irving Archives, Irving Public Library. The collection was donated to the Irving Archives by H. P. Hinton's son, Harwood P. Hinton, Jr. The photos span the years 1908 to the 1940s. The primary subjects of the photos are Hinton's Twin Wells Store, the Twin Wells Lumber Company founded by Tom Ross Hinton, and Irving school class photos from the 1930s and 1940s. Harwood P. Hinton, Jr., attended the Irving schools during those years. The photos provide a look at a bygone era in the history of the growth of the City of Irving.